Monday during the huge parade to celebrate the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the Stanley Cup again, at some point the actual Stanley Cup was dented pretty bad. Check out a pick from Bolts Jolts on Twitter.

Now if you read most of the comments below this pic lots of people are saying the Bolts don’t deserve the trophy now, or some other dumbass thing. But what they clearly don’t know, and you may not either, is that the Cup has been damaged A LOT! Its the only major sports trophy in North America that is passed on from winning team to winning team instead of having a new one made. And its one of the oldest trophies in sports dating all the way back to 1892. Plus there are 3 actual cups, the original, the permanent version on display in the Hockey Hall Of Fame, and a presentation version which is what is actually presented to the teams, thus the name.

And the presentation cup gets passed around more than a bong at a college party. Every winning team gets to keep the cup for most of the summer after winning it, and its become tradition that most, if not all, of the winning team’s players get it personally for a few days and can basically do whatever they want with it, within reason. Its had countless gallons of booze drank from it, which is a little gross when you realize how many times ite been peed in too. It’s been around the world to each team members home country and family events, birthday parties, etc. If you can think of a way to celebrate anything in life, the cup has probably done it.

And yes, of course, its been damaged a lot. I remember when the Dallas Stars won the cup in 1999 and I heard the story of the team partying with the cup at Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul’s house in Arlington when someone attempted to throw the cup into the pool and it came up short denting it. Now some say this never really happened, but my cousin Liz is married to Jamie Langenbrunner who was on the team and I heard portions of this story first hand so...

Here’s part of that story from Wikipedia: “The 1999 Dallas Stars’ Stanley Cup party was hosted at the house of Stars defenceman Craig Ludwig and Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul. At the party, Stars forward Guy Carbonneau (apparently having forgotten the Cup’s lack of buoyancy from his 1993 adventures) allegedly attempted to throw the Cup from the upstairs deck into the house’s Crown Royal shaped pool below. The Cup caught the lip of the pool, producing a large dent.

Mike Bolt, one of the “Keepers of the Cup” for the NHL, stated that this never happened. “What happened was that one of the players was posing with it next to the pool when someone pushed him into the water, and it went in with him. It was in the water maybe two seconds,” Bolt said. “It was a real good party from what I understand.” The trophy was dented the previous day, when a player dropped it during a locker room celebration, Bolt said.”

Anyway the cup was first reported damaged as far back as 1905, and has had flowers planted in it, been kicked across a river, left by the side of the road, had kids etch their names into it with a nail, had mortgage papers burned in it, been dropped into a bonfire, had dogs eating out of it, been tossed into other NHL star’s pools, had a Kentucky Derby winning horse eat out of it, was stained with butter and salt after Martin Brodeur ate popcorn out of it until Jamie Langenbrunner cleaned it, been left at airports, been knocked off tables, and even been POOPED IN by a newborn, along with having countless sets of lips and other body parts touching it non-stop for over a hundred years. And it has survived and been repaired every time, and keeps partying with the winning teams every year.

So if you’re upset that the Cup was damaged by the Bolts and think they should be punished for some reason, its clearly only because you’re not a true hockey fan who understands the celebrations these teams have had, and will have, with THEIR trophy. You didn’t win jack squat so shut up and let the pros have their well deserved fun.

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